On Zombies, Heath Lambert, and Gatekeeping in the Biblical Counseling Movement

Halloween arrived early this year in the biblical counseling world. In May 2024, Heath Lambert published a video essay entitled “Priests in the Garden, Zombies in the Wilderness, and Prophets on the Wall: The Current State of the Contemporary Biblical Counseling Movement.”¹ Like many people, Lambert sees the biblical counseling movement in a serious state of transition with the recent passings of Jay Adams (1929–2020) and David Powlison (1949–2019). Now lacking a universally recognized “voice” or “spokesman” for the movement, Lambert speaks for a section of the biblical counseling movement (BCM) which fears that the movement is failing to maintain its intellectual tradition and the legacy of its founders. In this video essay, Lambert identifies three categories of people dwelling around the “garden” of biblical counseling: priests in the garden, zombies in the wilderness, and prophets on the wall.

For context, one of the central tenets of the biblical counseling movement is the conviction that secular psychology does not present mere observations or therapeutic methods of care. Rather, secular psychology presents entire systems of thought grounded upon theories and beliefs about the world, man, and how to change people.² Since these secular systems are built upon convictions contrary to many doctrines presented in the Scriptures, biblical counselors have seen secular counseling and counsel derived from Scripture as fundamentally antithetical to one another and in competition with one another.³ Building upon this perspective, Lambert presents his own parable for the troubles confronting the biblical counseling world.

First, there are priests in the garden. These priests are biblical counselors doing the “priestly work” of studying God’s word and applying it to the lives of hurting people.⁴ Around the garden is a wall—a barrier protecting the lush garden of biblical counseling and manned by prophets who watch for dangerous threats and foes who seek to infiltrate the garden.⁵ Beyond the garden is a wilderness infested with zombies. These zombies are secular priests—or secular psychologists who offer “secular support for secular problems.”⁶ These “secular therapeutic zombies are a constant threat to the peace of the garden.”⁷ The “much quieter ministry of priests in the garden” is often interrupted by the noise of fighting along the walls, as a third group, the prophets, repel this constant zombie invasion and warn the priests of the potential errors.⁸

As the prophets labor to keep the garden safe, there are moments when the purity of the garden is sabotaged from within. Naïve priests sometimes desire to explore the wilderness to engage with the zombies. These optimistic priests seek to engage the zombies on their home turf to win these zombies to their side. This excursion also provides priests with the opportunity to study observations made in the wilderness. Yet, to the horror of the prophets, some of these faithful biblical counseling priests have become “bitten and infected by the zombies they were trying to help.”⁹ As these priests return to the garden, the prophets observe that these biblical counselors have been counter-converted, infected with the zombie virus of secularism. Although the priest may look normal for a while upon returning to the garden, the process of transforming from a priest into a zombie has begun.¹⁰ With infected priests resettling into the garden, Lambert concludes, “This intrusion into the garden represents the problem of compromise in the contemporary biblical counseling movement.”¹¹

When Lambert’s post was released, it was met with responses ranging from resounding approval to astounding appalment. On the one hand, some biblical counselors appreciated Lambert putting into words the uneasiness they were feeling concerning different developments within the BCM. On the other hand, many biblical counselors did not approve of being told that they were possibly infected with a zombie virus. After the initial post from Lambert, the counseling ministry of First Baptist Church Jacksonville began to release a successive series of videos identifying major issues within the biblical counseling movement, coined “Summer of Sufficiency.”¹² In a subsequent video,¹³ Lambert explicitly identifies the “infected priests corrupting the garden of biblical counseling,” the faculty of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (SEBTS), who recently dedicated an entire academic journal to the topic of biblical counseling.¹⁴ In this journal, SEBTS biblical counseling faculty and friends published several articles advancing their version of biblical counseling, which they coin “redemptive counseling.” Lambert prefers to call this SEBTS cohort a different name: “The New Integrationists.”¹⁵

These video essays from Heath Lambert and First Baptist Church Jacksonville reveal an issue confronting the biblical counseling movement. By definition, the biblical counseling movement is more than a parachurch ministry, it is a parachurch movement or association of like-minded churches, institutions, and counselors who identify themselves with an approach to counseling broadly associated with the label, “biblical counseling.” Biblical counselors are certified through counseling organizations (such as the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors or the Association of Biblical Counselors), recipients of biblical counseling degrees and certificates (from institutions such as the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation, or schools and seminaries across a spectrum of conservative denominations), or simply label themselves as a “biblical counselor.” Some biblical counselors are pastors, others enter the movement from secular counseling institutions and counsel within parachurch ministries. Biblical counselors are members of Baptist, Reformed, Presbyterian, Independent, Calvary Chapel, and non-denominational churches. In considering all these factors, it is becoming more and more difficult to regulate the identity and practice of biblical counseling.

Heath Lambert’s “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets” post is one attempt at gatekeeping in the biblical counseling movement. This video essay is an attempt to warn the biblical counseling movement about the “corruption” infiltrating its ranks. It also includes a call to action in order to prevent the spread of this zombie infection and purify the movement, even if it abandons some biblical counselors to the wilderness. In this essay, I will argue that the biblical counseling movement should not follow the model of gatekeeping outlined by Heath Lambert in “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets.” Upon closer examination, Lambert’s “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets” misapplies biblical images to the biblical counseling movement in a way that displaces the church as the biblically authorized community for debating and resolving issues pertaining to Christian beliefs and practices. Furthermore, Lambert’s article and the subsequent actions of First Baptist Jacksonville cater to the populist and fundamentalist impulses of the movement. Healthier pathways to gatekeeping are available to all biblical counselors from within their own ecclesiastical contexts. I will defend this argument in three movements. First, I will set Lambert’s essay within the history and context of the BCM. Second, I will analyze and critique Lambert’s application of biblical imagery to the BCM, exposing the faulty theological thinking underpinning this article concerning the BCM and the church. Third, I will trace some of the implications of Lambert’s logic concerning the BCM and the church, concluding with some counsel for addressing the issue of gatekeeping within the BCM.

Context and History of the Biblical Counseling Movement

From the perspective of church history, the existence of the modern biblical counseling movement—beginning in the 1970s—is not surprising. Throughout church history, Christians have regularly confronted the reality that life in the church is “less-than-ideal,” to put it lightly. From the limitations of its leaders to the people with a diversity of perspectives and backgrounds receiving the gospel—not to mention that pesky thing called “sin”—it is often easy to identify areas within the church that should be renewed and reformed; Ecclesia semper reformanda est. Thus, the church has regularly seen renewal movements throughout its history—groups of Christians partnering together for a common cause of seeing institutional change within the church. Examples from church history include Luther and the Protestant Reformation, the Puritans, and the pietistic waves throughout America and Europe beginning in the eighteenth century.¹⁶ The biblical counseling movement is by definition a renewal movement. Although we may never reach the status of the Puritans or the Dutch Nadere Reformatie,¹⁷ the biblical counseling movement seeks to recover the role of the Scriptures and the local church in counseling and the care of souls.

With the publication of Competent to Counsel in 1970, Jay Adams single-handedly initiated a revolution in American churches concerning the relationship between counseling and the local church. In Competent to Counsel, Adams labors “to show that the minister, Christian workers, and indeed every Christian, may consider himself at least potentially competent to counsel.”¹⁸ Competent to Counsel sold more than a quarter of a million copies within the first ten years of its publication, and the counseling revolution had begun.¹⁹ Yet, Adams’s works were not accepted by the evangelical institutions with burgeoning programs friendly towards secular psychology, nor many Reformed denominations and institutions. Rather, his initial reception was found among independent and smaller institutions across the country. In terms of theological disposition, David Powlison notes that Adams’s movement “was a hybrid, combining intellectual and practical features of both the Reformed tradition and the fundamentalist tradition. It hatched within Reformed circles but found its widest reception in fundamentalist audiences.”²⁰ In 1975, Adams published the small book, Your Place in the Counseling Revolution. In this work, Adams reveals that his revolution—“as indeed most revolutions are—has begun as a grassroots struggle.”²¹

In the early days of the movement, it quickly became evident that Adams’s new approach to counseling required a certifying apparatus. Powlison comments, “As biblical-nouthetic counseling gained adherents, the need for a professional association became evident. Concerns for the growing group of practitioners included certification for biblical counselors, accountability for standards of biblical commitment and ethics, fellowship and interaction among biblical counselors, ongoing in-service training, and protection from lawsuits.”²² In 1976, Adams and others launched the National Association of Nouthetic Counselors (NANC) to meet this need. Even as NANC began certifying nouthetic counselors (Adams’s original label for his counselors), biblical counseling has never shed its grassroots flavor. The late Timothy Keller (1950–2023) observes, “The Biblical Counseling movement has always been an exercise in populism, a rebellion against the professionalization and elitism of psychology.”²³ Powlison concurs,

Like many alternative medical philosophies and practices, a populist strand ran strongly through the biblical counseling movement. Adams’s writing exhibited a tension between the well-trained pastor as “God’s professional” and the traditional Protestant theme of the priesthood of all believers, defining anyone with life wisdom as “competent to counsel.” It provides a case of relatively deprofessionalized knowledge and practice, offering truths and techniques that the common person was intended to grasp and apply in self-care and care for family, friends, and neighbors.²⁴

The presence of populist instincts within biblical counseling should not be surprising since populism has defined American religion from its founding, as noted in the works of historian Nathan Hatch.²⁵ In many ways, church members and pastors within smaller communities have historically maintained the legacy of conservative views of Scripture and theology abandoned by mainline denominations centered in big cities near universities. As a result, Hatch notes that the instinct of many evangelicals is to discuss “the most serious and complex intellectual issues” before a popular audience.²⁶

Although populistic, biblical counseling has never been popular among American conservatives. Yes, biblical counseling has grown as a movement in leaps and bounds from its initial beginnings around Westminster Theological Seminary, to its adoption among institutions such as The Masters College and Seminary in California in the late 1980s,²⁷ to Bob Jones University in the 1990s, and several Southern Baptist and Reformed institutions in the twenty-first century, such as the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Southeastern Theological Seminary, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, and the Charlotte Campus of Reformed Theological Seminary.²⁸ NANC, now known as the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC), and other biblical counseling ministries have grown exponentially. Biblical counselors now hail from a wide spectrum of denominational backgrounds. Yet, as a renewal movement, biblical counseling has yet to achieve its desired goals.

The commitments of biblical counseling are not widely accepted within the American ecclesiastical context. The majority of Protestant, evangelical, and Reformed gospel-preaching churches and denominations do not practice biblical counseling. The average evangelical pastor does not see himself as a counselor. Many pastors use secular therapists, or they refer their members out to a Christian counselor trained in integration. Biblical counselors are a growing but still small minority within many evangelical denominations (including the Southern Baptist Convention, the Presbyterian Church in America, and others) that would be considered orthodox on the central tenets of the Christian faith and led by faithful Spirit-filled men. Furthermore, the doctrinal positions and practices of the major institutions of the biblical counseling movement, such as positions on the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture, the doctrine of the church, and the duties and responsibilities of pastors to counsel, are not authorized or supported by any ecclesiastical authority. These positions, although often discussed and debated with intensity among biblical counselors, receive zero attention at the annual conventions or meetings of any major Reformed or evangelical denomination in America.

The most significant development within the BCM over the past decade has been the exponential expansion of degree programs from biblical counseling schools. In a recent webinar, Brad Hambrick identified the growth of biblical counseling as a profession as a major contribution of the third generations of biblical counselors.²⁹ Biblical counselors, including men and women, are being trained and receiving degrees in counseling at rates previously unimaginable. They are also expecting to utilize these degrees as careers, leading many biblical counselors to pursue career opportunities outside the pastorate and in the parachurch ministry context. Each institution advancing degrees in biblical counseling offers its own curriculum, with more recent works written by biblical counselors replacing standard texts in biblical counseling written by Adams and the original generation. Furthermore, the “degree system” of biblical counseling circumvents the accountability structure originally established for biblical counseling since counselors with a graduate or doctoral degree can bypass certifying organizations such as ACBC.

While biblical counseling has experienced some advances, the movement has a long way to go in restoring counseling to the church. Moreover, signs of unrest within the biblical counseling world have been appearing for several years. As the BCM has grown, some biblical counseling leaders are becoming concerned that the original convictions concerning the incompatibility between Scripture and secular counseling are not being upheld by a newer generation of counselors and their respective institutions. Others would defend their practices as consistent with the model and example of Jay Adams and David Powlison and debate the nature and application of the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture to counseling. Other issues have divided the biblical counseling world, such as the doctrine of common grace, trauma and the body, and the adoption of the label “clinically-informed” as a modifier of biblical counseling.

As an example of recent concern, the late Lou Priolo (1954–2023), in his work Presuppositions of Biblical Counseling: What Historic Biblical Counselors Really Believe, chooses to identify himself as a “historic biblical counselor.”³⁰ For his rationale, he writes, “The term biblical counseling has become so popular and incorporates such a broad spectrum of counselors who profess to use the Scriptures in their counseling that many are confused as to what a biblical counselor really is.”³¹ As another example, Ernie Baker recently launched the publication of a series of popular-level booklets titled “Critical Issues in Biblical Counseling.” Explaining the rationale for this new series, he makes the following comments as consulting editor, “This series, Critical Issues in Biblical Counseling, is being written with the concern that some of the answers being proposed in the broader biblical-counseling world are inaccurate and leading historic biblical counseling down a path that will undermine the sufficiency of Scripture.”³² Heath Lambert’s video essay, “Priests in the Garden, Zombies in the Wilderness, and Prophets on the Wall: The Current State of the Contemporary Biblical Counseling Movement,” fits within this context as another example of a biblical counselor expressing concern over the development and direction of the movement.

On Gardens, Zombies, and Prophets

Lambert’s video essay can be critiqued and examined from various angles. First, Lambert’s rhetoric plays to the populism of the movement. His audience is not certified counselors of ACBC or members of his own church and denomination, but any member of the amorphous group of biblical counselors who will listen to his perspective. Lambert sees himself as standing upon the wall of biblical counseling, warning the movement that “our garden has been invaded, and we are in danger. The invaders look like priests but have been compromised by the zombie bite of secularism.”³³ Lambert’s argument also pits the local biblical counselor against the movement’s leaders, since his major concern is to point out that the “counter-converted priests are current and former leaders of biblical counseling organizations, some are professors of biblical counseling in our seminaries. They identify as biblical counselors on social media, get interviewed as authorities on podcasts, and speak at conferences. They are writing books, articles, and social media posts that you are reading, recommending, and giving to your friends.”³⁴ He ends his post by putting the fate of the movement into the hands of average biblical counselor: “Today, the future of the biblical counseling movement depends on you recognizing the zombies.”³⁵ The populist tactics of Lambert and the counseling ministry of FBC Jacksonville were on full display at the last ACBC conference, as their booth handed out 1,300 “anti-zombie stickers” to conference attendees, and continues to sell “anti-zombie stickers” through the website of their church’s counseling ministry.³⁶ Nothing says “populism” quite like handing out stickers that encapsulate the message of your agenda while disparaging your opponents.

Lambert also reaches into the playbook of past generations of fundamentalists. Lambert’s “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets” post is characterized by “militancy”³⁷ and language of conflict (“The prophets on the wall stand facing the zombie throng and defend the garden from attack.”³⁸), purity and separation from corruption as a litmus test for faithful counselors³⁹ (“One of the risks of the wilderness is the possibility that faithful biblical counseling priests will get bitten and infected by the zombies they were trying to help.”⁴⁰), and the tendency to cast conflicts in dualistic and Manichean terms⁴¹ (“The prophet’s work is not to keep the priests in the garden but the zombies out.”⁴²). Lambert’s use of some of these tools follows the heritage and history of biblical counseling. David Powlison himself identified these tools in Jay Adams as a reason for Adams’s success in launching a grassroots movement:

Yet Adams also stressed traditional fundamentalist themes: the authority and scope of Scripture; the antithesis between Christian and secular thought; a relatively uncomplicated counseling method promising relatively rapid progress; an activistic call to arms and action, rather than to reflective and scholarly concern; a populist, grass-roots emphasis; a separatist style of disengagement from both the wider Christian counseling community and culture at large a communication style that emphasized rhetorical abilities and public speaking rather than measured scholarly subtleties. What Noll terms “fundamentalist Manichaeism”—construing the world as an immediate battleground between Christian forces of light and demonized forces of darkness—finds articulation in Adams, yet with Reformed subtleties that his followers sometimes did not retain.⁴³

Yet, biblical counselors should pay the most attention to Lambert’s misapplication of biblical imagery to the biblical counseling movement. His post, “Priests in the Garden, Zombies in the Wilderness, and Prophets on the Wall,” is an effective piece of rhetoric because Lambert weaves together biblical themes and images to make his point. The scene begins in a garden, reminiscent of life in the world before sin (Gen 2:5–17). Life as it was supposed to be. The Bible also uses images of “wilderness” to depict, untamed and uninhabitable land (Ex 17:1–7; Lam 4:3–4; Jer 17:6)—land not suited for God’s people. Lambert’s language of “priests in the garden” clearly signals both the biblical Adam’s role as guardian and keeper of Eden (Gen 2:15) and the role of priests in the tabernacle/temple (Num 3:7–8; Mal 2:7). Few Christians can forget the stunning imagery twice depicted in Ezekiel of the prophet on the wall, serving as a watchman of God’s people and charged with the responsibility to warn the people of incoming dangers (Ezek 3:16–27; 33:1–20).

Lambert’s article plays upon the biblical intuitions of its audience. It takes little work for Lambert to establish the setting and the stakes because his audience is accustomed to viewing the world through biblical language. It is also more than likely that biblical counselors instinctively began to envision the various “priests” and “prophets” within the biblical counseling movement as well as its “wall” separating biblical counselors from a world filled with infected “zombies.”

The fundamental theological error in Lambert’s rhetoric is a co-opting of language the Bible uses to reference the institutional components of life among God’s people (prophets, priests, garden, and walls) and applying it to a parachurch movement. Yes, there are many churches within the biblical counseling movement (such as FBC Jacksonville, where Lambert pastors). The biblical counseling movement also includes many pastors (such as Lambert). Nevertheless, the biblical counseling movement does not have priests. It does not have prophets. It does not have walls. It is not a garden, because the biblical counseling movement is not the church. Lest people think that these comments are only analogy, Lambert has since publicly stated that it is important to him that the walls around the biblical counseling movement are “high” and “thick.”⁴⁴ The desire to construct a wall around a parachurch ministry to be defended from infectious outsiders reflects more of a sectarian impulse than biblical ecclesiology.

Since the desire of many biblical counselors is to restore counseling to the local church, it is surprising that the church is absent from his analogy. Scanning through Lambert’s original article, consider how he speaks about a parachurch movement:

The biblical counseling movement is “a beautiful, lush place flowing with fresh water and covered with beautiful flowers. . . . In a world full of trouble, this garden is a delightful place, and these priests are ones of whom the world is not worthy. They have the resources that alone address the problems of men and women at a level of depth. But this wonderful garden exists alongside a scary place.”⁴⁵
The prophets stand on the wall of the biblical counseling movement “facing the zombie throng and defend the garden from attack.”⁴⁶
Infected biblical counselors are “a threat to the faithful priests cultivating the garden. . . disturbing the tranquility of the biblical counseling garden.”⁴⁷
Lambert applies Matthew 7:15–16 to the biblical counseling movement, saying that Jesus foresees a picture of “treacherous forces outside a faithful community.”⁴⁸

From Lambert’s words, it is clear that he thinks really highly of the biblical counseling movement. Yet, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Lambert sees the biblical counseling movement as a “church within a church” embedded in a world of evils, which includes other Christians who have been “infected” with a disease that threatens his “beautiful and tranquil” garden. While Lambert seems to see a clear line between the “church” and the “world” in his analogy, it is difficult to see where the actual visible church, the pillar and buttress of truth (1 Tim 3:15), fits within this illustration.

The biblical concepts in Lambert’s analogy find little connection with the Bible’s presentation of the nature and calling of the church. Is not the “wall” of the church the confession of faith in Christ, not the distinction between biblical and secular counseling? Are not the prophets and guardians of the church her ordained elders, not self-appointed popular counselors, professors, authors, and conference speakers? Is not the church the authorized community for rightly understanding, interpreting, and applying Scripture?

In their work, Reformed Catholicity: The Promise of Retrieval for Theology and Biblical Interpretation, Michael Allen and Scott Swain provide an important reminder for Lambert and the biblical counseling movement. The “garden” of biblical counseling alone does not contain “all the faithful people who study the words of God and apply them to the lives of hurting people,” as Lambert contends.⁴⁹ Rather, God has given these resources to the church. God’s Word is the foundation of the church (Eph 2:19–21). God has also given “prophets, apostles, evangelists, pastors, and teachers” to the church (Eph 4:11). It is the responsibility of the church to “build up the body of Christ” (Eph 4:12–13). Allen and Swain argue that the church alone is authorized to build up the body of Christ, “and theology flourishes within the sphere of the church’s authorized pursuit of this end.”⁵⁰

The church is not only authorized to build up the body of Christ and care for its members, but the church is responsible for doctrinal formulation, the writing of confessions that summarize what the Scriptures teach and handling doctrinal disputes. R. Scott Clark points to many passages—such as Rom 10:9–10; 1 Tim 1:15, 3:1, 3:16, 4:9; 2 Tim 2:11; Titus 3:8—for reminders that the church alone bears the authority to establish confessions and repudiate falsehood.⁵¹ Allen and Swain also observe Scripture upholding the centrality of the church for reading Scripture, perceiving the doctrines contained within its sacred pages, and formulating confessions. Drawing upon 1 John 2:27, they argue that, since the anointing of Christ abides upon the church, the church is the seedbed of theology, “the fertile creaturely field within which alone Christ’s teaching has the promise of flourishing in renewed human understanding.”⁵²

Furthermore, the doctrinal statements formulated by the church are a direct fruit of the Spirit’s presence working among a body of believers to understand Scripture (Eph 1:18; 1 Cor 2:13–16).⁵³ Christ has designated the church alone—not an individual pastor, not a parachurch organization, and not an informal counseling movement—as the “authorized reading community” of the Scriptures with the authority to engage in the act of “traditioning,” or formulating doctrinal statements which reflect all that the Scriptures teach.⁵⁴ As John Webster reminds his readers, the doctrine of sola Scriptura must be maintained within its proper context of other doctrinal claims, such as, “God as sanctifying, inspiring, and authorizing presence; the Spirit as the one who enables recognition of, trust in, and glad submission to the claim of Scripture’s gospel content; the church as faithful, self-renouncing and confessing assembly around the lively Word of God.”⁵⁵

Implications and Conclusion

Gatekeeping has different levels and kinds. There is academic gatekeeping, where entrance into an academic community is reserved for those with advanced degrees and protected by boards and associations. There is associational gatekeeping, where entrance into an association is limited to members who have fulfilled certain requirements and vow to hold to certain expectations and principles. A form of associational gatekeeping is ecclesiastical gatekeeping, where churches guard the purity of the church in life and doctrine through the means established by Christ through receiving members and discipline (Matt 16:18–20; Matt 18:15–20) as well as the appointment of qualified individuals to offices such as elders and deacons (1 Tim 3; Tit 1).

What types of gatekeeping are available to the biblical counseling movement? Certainly, different associations, such as ACBC, can gatekeep the counselors certified within their organization. Different institutions can increase the requirements for receiving a biblical counseling degree. Yet, as a parachurch movement, there are sadly few mechanisms in place to prevent people and individuals from calling themselves “biblical counselors,” especially if different Christians have different understandings of what qualifies as counseling that is “biblical.” As Richard Muller observes concerning conflicts over what qualifies as “biblical” that “a broadly defined appeal to sola Scriptura or to methodological principles of Scripture [do not] offer a suitable antidote to the problem. Scripture, to cite an old maxim, can have ‘a nose of wax.’ It can be bent in all directions unless there is a confessional context within which the work of interpretation takes place.”⁵⁶

Lambert takes a populistic approach to biblical counseling’s gatekeeping problem. He points to the average biblical counselor and says, “The future of the biblical counseling movement depends on you recognizing the zombies.”⁵⁷ Using populism to gatekeep a movement is only a few steps away from unleashing the mob upon people with whom Lambert disagrees. Furthermore, Lambert continues to make a critical mistake in his gatekeeping efforts, the same one he made back in his plenary talk at the 2017 ACBC conference.⁵⁸ In “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets,” he puts those with whom he disagrees under the category of wolves and false prophets. Lambert writes, “[Jesus] says, ‘Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits’ (Matt 7:15–16). The obvious difference between the two illustrations is that where Jesus is talking about bad prophets, I am talking about bad counselors. Apart from that distinction, there is a great deal of similarity.”⁵⁹

As much as Lambert would like to think that he is following the example of Jesus, Lambert misapplies language that Jesus uses specifically for gatekeeping the kingdom of God to the label “biblical counseling” and the biblical counseling movement. In a commentary on the original piece, Lambert uses another “kingdom-gatekeeping” word in calling the “zombie-infected priests” to repent.⁶⁰ If Lambert had instead made comments such as “the movement needs new labels for these different approaches to counseling,” or “I cannot recommend that my church members receive counsel from these individuals,” he would have received less pushback on his “Priests, Zombies, Prophets” post. ACBC and other organizations that agree with Lambert’s positions can even choose to adjust their standards for certification and rescind their certifications from counselors outside the boundaries of their comfortability. Lambert and other biblical counselors are free to build their walls and have their small “counseling garden” to themselves. Instead, Lambert seems unable to tolerate the possibility that someone may call themselves a biblical counselor and disagree with him, continuing to apply language involving “wolves,” “false teachers,” and “repentance” to biblical counselors with different convictions from himself. In doing so, Lambert overshoots the gatekeeping of the biblical counseling movement to gatekeeping Christ’s kingdom.

The sad reality behind these interactions is the fact that Lambert and these “wolves” and “false teachers” are part of the same denomination. As stated previously, Lambert has come out and identified the faculty of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary as the “wolves” and “false teachers” in his illustration, with more potential name-calling on the horizon for other leaders within the movement.⁶¹ Lambert also targets “clinically-informed biblical counselors,” commenting, “The only priests who ever say such things are ones with deadly infection coursing through their ministry veins.”⁶² Yet, I am almost positive that the counseling faculty of SEBTS, and most (if not all) clinically-informed counselors, are members in good standing of their local churches. In other words, their own local pastors and Southern Baptist churches (full of professing Christians and being led by the Holy Spirit to understand the Scriptures) do not see their counseling practices as inconsistent with both Scripture and their gospel profession.

And remember, even the most clinically-informed/trauma-informed biblical counselor is still far more conservative than the average evangelical pastor on the sufficiency of Scripture as it relates to counseling. If Lambert is concerned about the counseling program at Southeastern, what does that mean for the counseling program at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, which does not offer biblical counseling, but prepares counseling students to pursue state licensure? Since the majority of evangelical and Reformed pastors happily dwell in the “wilderness” and regularly interact with zombies, it is impossible to avoid the logical conclusion that Lambert believes that the average evangelical and Reformed pastor in America, and many pastors within his own denomination are actually false teachers and wolves. Is that the reason why Lambert constructs his “wall” around his “faithful remnant” of those who hold to his specific doctrinal commitments concerning Scripture and counseling? Lambert’s continuing application of words such as “false teachers,” “wolves,” and “repentance” to his opponents is leading to a smaller and smaller number of Christians that he would recognize as “faithful Christians,” a tactic that will guarantee that his flavor of biblical counseling will continue to devolve from a parachurch movement into another fundamentalist sect.

What should the biblical counseling movement do? Instead of Lambert’s populist gatekeeping approach, biblical counselors must reengage a vision abandoned by the founders of the biblical counseling movement—pursuing ecclesiastical engagement and help for the codification of biblical counseling doctrine and practice. In 1990, Adams hoped that the church, “becoming aware of the great dangers” of secular psychology, would “set down its abhorrence of, and warning against, them in doctrinal statements about the work of the minister and that such statements will eventually issue in generally agreed-upon creedal forms.”⁶³ In 1994, Powlison comments, “A creedal circle needs to be drawn delineating the boundaries of a biblical counseling confession and practice. What commitments and practices mark one as a biblical counselor? What commitments and practices mark one as some other sort of counselor?”⁶⁴

Although different biblical counseling organizations have crafted various doctrinal and confessional statements (the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors,⁶⁵ and the Biblical Counseling Coalition⁶⁶), none of these statements have authorized support from any major evangelical or Reformed denomination. Biblical counselors and their institutions must begin to look to their ecclesiastical contexts for help in formulating the theory and practice of biblical counseling within their churches. Biblical counselors cannot serve as a renewal movement for the church from behind a wall defended by “prophets;” they must submit themselves to the polity and processes of the church. Instead of attempting to keep other Christians out of their “pure garden,” biblical counselors should submit themselves to the gatekeeping practices of their ecclesiastical contexts, even if it results in different approaches to counseling and articulations of their doctrinal convictions. It is more important that the doctrine and practice of biblical counseling is approved by a counselor’s local church authority than the self-appointed “prophets” of the biblical counseling movement. This process may result in different flavors of biblical counseling (and different “gardens”) that reflect their respective ecclesiastical contexts, since different churches necessarily have different convictions concerning the system of truth contained in the Scriptures. Nevertheless, the end result will be healthier for the church and the movement than the approach modeled by Lambert in “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets.”

Almost three decades later, David Powlison’s words concerning the future of the biblical counseling movement are still worth pondering:

One of the results of tracing the rediscovery of biblical counseling has been the challenge to think towards the future. Church history bears testimony to the uncertain fortunes of ministries and movements. Some thrive. Others miscarry early on. Some grow, then collapse. Some prosper a while and then stagnate. Some go soft and drift into compromise. Some go the other way, becoming sectarian and self-righteous. Some are renewed when things look bleak. Some go off the tracks into error or irrelevancy. How can biblical counseling continue to grow in wisdom and stature as it faces the challenges of the future?⁶⁷

[1] Heath Lambert, “Priests in the Garden, Zombies in the Wilderness, and Prophets on the Wall: The Current State of the Contemporary Biblical Counseling Movement,” First Thoughts, First Baptist Church Jacksonville, May 13, 2024, https://fbcjax.com/first-thoughts/priests-in-the-garden-zombies-in-the-wilderness-and-prophets-on-the-wall-the-current-state-of-the-contemporary-biblical-counseling-movement/.

[2] “The sort of eclecticism by which one assumes that he can adopt techniques that grow out of non-biblical principles that rest upon non-Christian presuppositions has done much damage to Christian counseling. . . . It is impossible to destroy the foundation and preserve the superstructure. Because non-biblical systems rest upon non-biblical presuppositions, it is impossible to reject the presuppositions and adopt the techniques which grow out of and are appropriate to those presuppositions.” Jay E. Adams, Competent to Counsel: Introduction to Nouthetic Counseling, The Jay Adams Library (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1970), 100, 102.

[3] “Counseling in the Christian church continues to be compromised significantly by the secular assumptions and practices of our culture’s reigning psychologies and psychiatries. Biblical-nouthetic counseling was initiated to provide two things: a cogent critique of secularism and a distinctly biblical alternative. The traditional insights, strengths, and commitments of nouthetic counseling must be maintained. Biblical counseling operates within the world-view of the Bible, with the Bible in hand. It is centered on God even (especially!) when it thinks about man. It is centered on Jesus Christ, who became a man in order to save us. It is centered in the midst of Christ’s people, who are called to pray for one another and to counsel one another in love.” David Powlison, “Critical Issues in Contemporary Biblical Counseling,” The Journal of Pastoral Practice 9, no. 3 (1988): 53–54.

[4] Lambert, “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets.”

[5] Lambert, “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets.”

[6] Lambert, “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets.”

[7] Lambert, “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets.”

[8] Lambert, “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets.”

[9] Lambert, “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets.”

[10] “When counter-conversion occurs, the person who intended to help becomes the person in need of help. This zombie bite of counter-conversion takes a while to fully transform a priest into a zombie. Before that full transformation, infected priests can make it back to the wall, past the protecting eye of the prophets, and into the garden, where they become a threat to the faithful priests cultivating the garden.” Lambert, “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets.”

[11] Lambert, “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets.”

[12] “Summer of Sufficiency,” First Thoughts, First Baptist Church Jacksonville, https://fbcjax.com/first-thoughts/summer-of-sufficiency/.

[13] Heath Lambert, “Six Crucial Confusions of The New Integrationists,” First Thoughts, First Baptist Church Jacksonville, https://fbcjax.com/first-thoughts/six-crucial-confusions-of-the-new-integrationists/.

[14] For the academic journal, see Southeastern Theological Review 15, no. 1 (Spring 2024): 1–86, https://www.sebts.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/STR-15.1-4-1-24.pdf.

[15] Lambert, “Six Crucial Confusions of The New Integrationists.”

[16] For a text considering the Reformation as a renewal movement, see Matthew Barrett, The Reformation as Renewal: Retrieving the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2023). Concerning Puritanism, J. I. Packer writes, “Puritanism I define as that movement in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England which sought further reformation and renewal in the Church of England than the Elizabethan settlement allowed.” J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1990), 35. The waves of Pietism within the Protestant world reflect the conviction that “reforming doctrines and institutions in the church was futile unless people’s lives were reformed and revitalized.” Richard F. Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal, Exp. ed. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1979), 13.

[17] Concerning this “further Reformation” in the Netherlands, see Joel R. Beeke, “Introduction to the Dutch Further Reformation (Nadere Reformatie),” in The Christian’s Only Comfort in Life and Death: An Exposition of the Heidelberg Catechism, by Theodorus Vandergroe, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2016), xxix–liv.

[18] Adams, Competent to Counsel, 268.

[19] David Powlison, The Biblical Counseling Movement: History and Context (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2010), 52.

[20] Powlison, The Biblical Counseling Movement, 12.

[21] Jay E. Adams, Lectures on Counseling (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1978), 18.

[22] David Powlison, “Biblical Counseling in the Twentieth Century,” in Introduction to Biblical Counseling: A Basic Guide to the Principles and Practice of Counseling, eds. John F. MacArthur, Wayne A. Mack, and the Master’s College Faculty (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1994), 53.

[23] Timothy Keller, “Four Models of Counseling in Pastoral Ministry,” Redeemer City to City, 2010. https://c4265878.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/redeemer.1709191425.Four_Models_of_Counseling_in_Pastoral_Ministry.pdf

[24] Powlison, The Biblical Counseling Movement, 10.

[25] Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989). Nathan O. Hatch, “Evangelicalism as a Democratic Movement,” in Evangelicalism and Modern America, ed. George Marsden (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984), 71–82

[26] Hatch, “Evangelicalism as a Democratic Movement,” 79.

[27] Powlison, “Biblical Counseling in the Twentieth Century,” 55.

[28] For a list of schools within the US offering biblical counseling degrees, see Bob Kellemen, “20 US Schools with Biblical Counseling Degree Programs, RPM Ministries, October 21, 2020, https://rpmministries.org/2020/10/20-us-schools-with-biblical-counseling-degree-programs/.

[29] Brad Hambrick, “Redemptive Counseling Perspective: The History of Biblical Counseling,” The Summit Church RDU, June 27, 2024, https://event.webinarjam.com/t/click/9pmzyuovu74tvohyn5ys58rsvgh4.

[30] Lou Priolo, Presuppositions of Biblical Counseling: What Historical Biblical Counselors really Believe (Conway, AR: Grace & Truth Books, 2023), xi.

[31] Priolo, Presuppositions of Biblical Counseling, xi.

[32] Ernie Baker, A Word from the Consulting Editor, in Ernie Baker, The Psychologies, Critical Issues in Biblical Counseling (Wapwallopen, PA: Shepherd Press, 2023), 13.

[33] Lambert, “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets.”

[34] Lambert, “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets.”

[35] Lambert, “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets.”

[36] Sean Perron (@sean perron), “We gave away 1,300 stickers last week.” Twitter, October 14, 2024, 3:51 PM (https://x.com/seanperron/status/1845915353786077660). “Anti-Zombie Counseling Stickers,” First Counseling, accessed October 23, 2024, https://first-counseling.square.site/.

[37] George Marsden, Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 3.

[38] Lambert, “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets.”

[39] Marsden, Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism, 3.

[40] Lambert, “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets.”

[41] See Mark Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994). Richard Hofstadter observes, “The fundamentalist mind will have nothing to do with all this: it is essentially Manichean; it looks upon the world as an arena for conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, and accordingly it scorns compromises (who would compromise with Satan?) and can tolerate no ambiguities.” Richard Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (New York: Vintage Books, 1963), 135. Marsden adds that the fundamentalists were “disposed to divide all reality into neat antitheses: the saved and the lost, the holy and the unsanctified, the true and the false.” Combined with the residuals of the American Common Sense tradition, many fundamentalists believed that “they could clearly distinguish these contrasting facts when they appeared in everyday life. Add to these predispositions the fundamentalist experience of social displacement (which Hofstadter makes much of) and the ‘Manichean mentality’ becomes comprehensible.” George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth Century Evangelicalism, 1870–1925 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 210–11.

[42] Lambert, “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets.”

[43] Powlison, The Biblical Counseling Movement, 12.

[44] Heath Lambert, “FTC Workshop with Heath Lambert | Q&A,” Midwestern Seminary, Youtube Video, 46:38, October 23, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huYEpkoc-nA (42:54).

[45] Lambert, “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets.”

[46] Lambert, “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets.”

[47] Lambert, “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets.”

[48] Lambert, “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets.”

[49] Lambert, “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets.”

[50] Michael Allen and Scott R. Swain, Reformed Catholicity: The Promise of Retrieval for Theology and Biblical Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015), 43.

[51] R. Scott Clark, Recovering the Reformed Confession: Our Theology, Piety, and Practice (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2008), 155.

[52] Allen and Swain, Reformed Catholicity, 18.

[53] Allen and Swain, Reformed Catholicity, 25–27.

[54] Allen and Swain, Reformed Catholicity, 99ff.

[55] John Webster, “Scripture, Church, and Canon,” in Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch, Current Issues in Theology (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003), 55–56, quoted in Allen and Swain, Reformed Catholicity, 50.

[56] Richard A. Muller, “Historiography in the Service of Theology and Worship: Toward Dialogue with John Frame, Westminster Theological Journal 59 (1997): 302.

[57] Lambert, “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets.”

[58] Heath Lambert, “Faithfully Protestant,” The Association of Certified Biblical Counselors, October 12, 2017, https://biblicalcounseling.com/resource-library/conference-messages/faithfully-protestant-heath-lambert/.

[59] Lambert, “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets.”

[60] Heath Lambert, “A Commentary on Priests, Zombies, and Prophets,” First Thoughts, First Baptist Church Jacksonville, https://fbcjax.com/first-thoughts/a-commentary-on-priests-zombies-and-prophets/.

[61] Lambert, “Six Crucial Confusions of The New Integrationists.”

[62] Lambert, “Priests, Zombies, and Prophets.”

[63] Jay E. Adams, “Reflections on the History of Biblical Counseling,” in Practical Theology and the Ministry of the Church, 1952–1984: Essays in Honor of Edmund P. Clowney, ed. Harvie M. Conn (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1990), 217.

[64] Powlison, “Biblical Counseling in the Twentieth Century,” 56.

[65] “Standards of Doctrine,” Association of Certified Biblical Counselors, accessed October 23, 2024, https://biblicalcounseling.com/about/beliefs/positions/standards-of-doctrine/.

[66] “BCC Confessional Statement,” The Biblical Counseling Coalition, accessed October 23, 2024, https://www.biblicalcounselingcoalition.org/confessional-statement/.

[67] Powlison, “Biblical Counseling in the Twentieth Century,” 55.

Author

Jared Poulton

Jared Poulton (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) serves as interim assistant pastor at Cornerstone United Reformed Church in Hudsonville, Michigan, biblical counselor with Anchored Virtual (anchoredvirtual.com), and adjunct professor at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. He also mentors counseling students in the practicum classes at Southern Seminary. Jared and his wife Kerry have three children.
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